Disasterology: September 2024

Oct 01, 2024

This newsletter is a compilation of recent disaster ~things~ that I think are cool, important, or otherwise of interest to people who are intrigued with disaster (broadly defined). There’s a little something for everyone!

Hello My Little Rabble Rousers,

A few of you have told me you read this newsletter in Kristen Bell’s voice, which is great because that is exactly how I write it! I can’t start every newsletter with “Hello Upper East Siders”, though, so I just pick random things. I have called you all “Friends & Foes”, My Little Twisters, My Spooky Little Zombies, Little Spring Tulips, My Little Balls of Anxiety, and Disaster Nerds. Last month I greeted you as “My Little Cherry Tomatoes”. You see it was tomato season and I had just been out picking some before I sent the newsletter. It is not that deep.

Incidentally, last month’s newsletter antagonized a (very small) group of men on the internet. In particular, I seem to have offended their delicate sensibilities by making the very obvious “FU” joke in my recap of the FEMA University situation. I went through a few days of scolding for being unprofessional and it did make me think that I should apologize. So, sorry… Was I funny? In my OWN newsletter that I write on my OWN time about my OWN experience in this field?

One of these curmudgeons, in an anonymous post, began his lecture, “First of all, I am not a cherry tomato, I am an Emergency Management Director”.

Sir. I… yes, okay.

An objectively hilarious response but also… to that guy, YOU’RE NOT FUN.

Some dude can be mad at me about tomatoes if he wants but far and away the feedback I get about this newsletter is that everyone loves the humor. Things in our field can get pretty bleak *gestures around*. So, we do humor here to keep ourselves sane and bring a little joy to emergency management. It is okay to laugh even when times are bad. I love this little newsletter and since it keeps growing, I think you all do too. And, so, my Little Cherry Tomatoes, we carry on.

Hurricane Helene

Speaking of bleak things… I am sure you all have been following the news. Since we are still very much in the middle of the response, I am going to hold off sharing lots of links. So much of what we think we know during a response ends up being not quite accurate and there is already so much misinformation spreading on Twitter I want to be extra responsible. We will talk more about this in next month’s newsletter. In the meantime, I am tweeting through this so you can follow me there for more regular updates.

MEME Break

But seriously… what’s the deal with people’s behavior on LinkedIn? Wild stuff.

Reading Season

I am notoriously a non-fiction girlie but this summer I read not one, not two, but an unprecedented three disaster/climate fiction books.

I started with Mary Annaïse Heglar’s long awaited debut novel Troubled Waters. Mary is one of my favorite climate writers (here’s a good one). Troubled Waters follows a young Black woman from Mississippi who simultaneously navigates the current grief of losing a family member to the oil industry and the anticipation of losing everything else to the oil industry. It explores climate change, race in the south, and the 1927 Mississippi River Flood along a backdrop of New Orleans and Mississippi. To say this book is relevant to my interests would be an understatement. So, I think you all will like it too. Also, you just have to love seeing 1927 flood representation.

Next, I did a re-read of Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower. Published in 1993, the book explores the United States in the 2020s. The country has descended into chaos as economic inequality reaches extremes and the impacts of climate change take hold. The book is a series of journal entries written by a young woman who tries to navigate the country, find community, and start a new religion. The first journal entry in the book is dated July 2024 so a lot of people were posting about it this summer.

I first read the novel at some point in the early 2000’s, I can picture it on the bookshelf in my high school bedroom. Truthfully, I do not remember being particularly moved by it the first time I read it. But WHEW did it read differently twenty years later and in the context of the consequences of climate change unfolding around us. One line in particular has been haunting me, especially as the genocide in Gaza has continued: “Our bones mixed with the bones and ashes of our cities”. A punch in the gut.

The summer of Butler ended up continuing to my third book when I learned that there is a sequel to Parable of the Sower that no one mentioned?! Parable of the Talents picks up where Sower leaves off and carries us through the 2030s. I won’t say too much but the disasters continue. The politics?! There were moments of this book that I literally gasped aloud reading. I will tell you Butler’s books have got me real spooked but they are required reading. They really hold up.

Back in non-fiction world I wanted to draw your attention to a NEW book out now by Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson called “What If We Get It Right” which is now a New York Times Bestseller! Among the many solutions to the climate crisis, you will find an interview with me about some of the most basic and quick emergency management reforms that need to happen NOW if we are going to be able to even attempt to manage the consequences of climate change. I was able to make it to the book launch in Brooklyn last week which was a climate variety show hosted by Ayana and Jason Sudeikis. Ayana is on a book tour around the country and I’ll be at the Boston and Portland (Maine) stops this month if you are local!

If you happen to live in Cleveland, I will be doing a book signing for Disasterology at Loganberry Books on Sunday October 13^th at noon. Would love to see you there!

Research Corner

The Journal of Emergency Management put together a survey to get a sense of expected impacts of the FEMA University situation. If you’re part of emergency management higher education please take a few moments to fill it out.

I also wanted to highlight a new journal in our field – The Journal of Disaster Studies. They have just released their first issue and it is open access! That means anyone can read the articles for free. So, have at it!

The End Bits

I would love it if you’d forward this to your friends, post on social media, and undertake any other form of newsletter sharing you deem appropriate.

In case you signed up for this newsletter without knowing who I am (a bold choice!) you can read my book Disasterology: Dispatches From The Frontlines of The Climate Crisis to catch up! You can read a USA Today review here, order it here, or get it as an audiobook here. You can also find more from me on my blog, listen to this episode of Ologies, or follow me on Twitter and Instagram where I impulsively narrate my every thought.

Finally, this newsletter is ~FREE~. I plan on keeping it that way because eliminating barriers to disaster knowledge is important. However, I’ve created a “paid subscriber” option for $5 a month or whatever you’d like to give if you’re interested in supporting this work.